The 2016 European Union Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy (EUGS) highlights the need to enhance external policies by pursuing better communication, information-sharing, joint reporting, analysis and response planning between member state embassies, EU delegations, Commission services, EU Special Representatives and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions. The CIVILnEXt project supports the development of a solution addressing existing “fragmentation” and closing “gaps”. To provide civilian CSDP missions with the next generation of secure and cost-effective information systems: a situational awareness, information exchange and operation control platform (OCP). Fully informed of contributing initiatives in civilian CSDP and EU external action, the project will aim to develop solutions leveraging on the results extracted from projects funded by the EU. The common challenge in CIVILnEXt is to develop, test and validate a cost-effective and interoperable operation control platform (OCP) that will support the conduct of civilian CSDP missions. The OCP will improve coordination in EU external action through better information exchange, situational awareness and operation control in diverse theaters of operation. It will support the EU’s comprehensive approach in complex missions, including the civil-military cooperation within CSDP, facilitate the engagement CSDP actors, creating links EU Delegations, FRONTEX, ECHO and other EU activities, member states, as appropriate, and other partners such as the UN and regional organisations. CIVILnEXt engages the participation of four national competent authorities, active in EU external policies and the UN organisations IOM. They share the need to become beneficiaries of procurement results that enhance the effectiveness of civilian CSDP. They are co-financing the action under one single joint procurement, supported by technical and policy advisors, with extensive CSDP experience.

Effective EU support to a large external crisis requires new approaches. In response to this challenge and to identified user and market needs from previous projects, Reaching Out proposes an innovative multi-disciplinary approach that will optimize the efforts, address a wide spectrum of users and maximize market innovation success. This approach results in five main objectives: to 1. Develop a Collaborative Framework, with distributed platforms of functional services, 2. Implement a flexible and open “collaborative innovation” process involving users and SMEs, suppliers, operators and research organisations, 3. Develop, upgrade and integrate 78 new connectable and interoperable tools, 4. Conduct 5 large scale demonstrations on the field: o health disaster in Africa (Epidemics in Guinea, with strong social and cultural issues), o natural disaster in a politically complex region and a desert environment (Earthquake in the Jordan Valley, led jointly by Jordan, Israel and Palestine), o three global change disasters in Asia targeted at large evacuation and humanitarian support in Bangladesh (long lasting floods, huge storms and associated epidemics,), EU citizen support and repatriation in Shanghai (floods & storm surge), radiological and industrial disasters impacting EU assets in Taiwan (flash floods, landslides, storm surge and chemical and radiological disasters), supported and co-funded by local authorities, 5. Provide recommendations and evaluations for future legal and policy innovations. The project will be conducted under the supervision of senior end-users. It will be performed with flexible and proven procedures by a balanced consortium of users, industry, innovative SMEs, RTO and academia in the EU and the demonstration regions. The main expected impact is to improve external disaster and crisis management efficiency and cost-benefit and increase the EU visibility whilst enhancing EU industry competitiveness and enlarging the market.

The AI-ARC proposal presents a highly innovative and user-friendly artificial intelligence (AI) based platform known as the Virtual Control Room (VCR). Due to the vast amounts of information collected the potential for information overload is real. This reality can complicate the operational picture; reduce situational awareness and often results in delayed and impaired decision-making. On the other hand, areas such as the Arctic Sea suffer from a lack of communication, surveillance data and rescue assets and without action taken to address these vulnerabilities, the consequences are potentially dramatic in terms of accidents, pollution, border infringements and criminal activities. The AI-ARC VCR supports all these challenges by applying AI, machine-learning and virtual reality (VR) technologies to filter numerous validated and statistical data streams and databases to a user-friendly interface. The VCR improves situational awareness by assisting end users to customize a “smart” operational picture. The VCR will permit users to specify their preferences in terms of threat levels, abnormal behavior, interoperability and risk management by flagging detected anomalies with confidence and providing threat or risk levels according to a predefined model based on user preferences. This means that users can create awareness for their own purposes that reflects their needs without increasing their workload. AI-ARC‘s principal objectives align fully with the H2020 BES-SU-open, and are of crucial relevance to it. The Virtual Control Room (VCR) has the power to greatly improve maritime situational awareness, decision-making, communication, available rescue resources, and thus the safety of all maritime actors, particularly in the Arctic Sea. Furthermore, the enhanced communication and collaboration provided by AI ARC’s innovative technology encourages, and enables further development of symbiotic services and fosters much needed Arctic cooperation.

SPACEWAYS intends to create a common understanding of the guidelines and standards necessary to develop a Space Traffic Management (STM) concept for the European Union (EU). It also aims to assess European technical available and required capabilities (notably in the field of SSA/SST technologies) with respect to STM requirements; and to provide a set of STM best practices and recommendations in line with EU interests. This includes the preservation of a safe, secure and sustainable space environment as well as the reinforcement of European sovereignty and competiveness. Over its 18-month duration, SPACEWAYS’ first objective will be to analyse the policy, legal and economic context of STM. It will aim to better understand the STM concept’s dynamics worldwide and its consequences for Europe. While key space powers may attempt to create norms and regulations for future STM, SPACEWAYS intends to provide guidelines to support European policy making thereupon. In parallel, another goal will be to assess European capabilities and technology gaps with respect to future STM requirements. SPACEWAYS will identify stakeholders and users’ needs by associating them to the project through a networking platform. It will also proceed to a complete analysis of technical needs defined by future STM possible regulations. Both SSA/SST capabilities and technological developments related to new space missions and functions will be analysed. Here, specific attention will be devoted to mega constellation management, on-orbit operations or launch and re-entry future activities. These parallel lines of work will converge to produce a set of STM guidelines and best practices fully compatible with EU interests. They will be disseminated to relevant communities, to support the EU, as a major space and economic actor, to address future STM challenges.